Blue Aspen Originals

Recipes

Beginner Recipes | Blue Aspen Original Recipes | Blue Aspen Original Castile Recipes | Viewer Shared Recipes

Here are some of the recipes I use. I started with recipes from Kathy Miller's Homemade Soap page when I first began soap making. Her batches were much larger than I wanted to make so I had to learn to resize a recipe. Now I have a few recipes I have come up with and soap all the time. Once I think I have a favorite recipe I end up changing it a few batches down the road, always trying to improve on it. My goal for a bar of soap is lots of rich lather. For me that is the best soap to use when bathing. I also want it to be mild and very hard. I use approximately 60% hard oils and 40% liquid oils to make a hard bar.

You can add Borax to soap recipes if you live in hard water situations to condition the water which helps soap lather. I have also add stearic acid to some recipes which help make the bars much harder. Generally all vegetable oil soaps don't have the stearic acid content found in animal-derived oils and can be softer. If too many hard oils like coconut, palm kernel and cocoa butter are used with stearic acid, the soap becomes too brittle and crumbles. I have used palm stearic acid derived from palm oil. There is also stearic acid derived from beef available and they are pretty much interchangeable. You do not need to recalculate a recipe if you add borax (generally a tablespoon for 20 oz of water) but you do if you add or subtract stearic acid because it reacts with the lye.

Always remember to run any recipe you find through the MMS Lye Calculator or another similar calculator. You never know if you will run into a typo or miscalculation from someone. Any soap recipe can be used for cold process and any hot process method you decide to use.

I give a range of superfatting of 5-8%. The greater amount of lye is for the lower amount of superfatting. I do this because that is the range I shoot for when measuring lye. I have the container I am measuring my lye into tared (zeroed) on the scale and I pour into it, sometimes I go over the lower amount but if its under the 5% value it will be ok, just less superfatted. I do this because I don't want a mess trying to pour lye back into the bottle. The water amount given is also about 25-30% less than the amount recommended by MMS Lye Calculator because I feel using their recommended amount of water makes the bars shrink too much during the cure.

Most all these recipes are for 3lb batches. That means 3lbs of oils that will fit in a 3lb log mold from TLC Soap and Sundries that I use. I have added %'s in quotes to make it easier for you to adjust to the size recipe you want to use. The newer recipes are larger to fit into the larger custom molds I have, the % values will help you resize the recipe to your needs.

Blue Aspen Beginner Recipes
These recipes are simple and use easy to find ingredients and make good soap.
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Beginner's Vegetable

16 oz Coconut oil (35.16%)
16 oz Palm oil (35.16%)
13.5 oz Olive oil (29.67%)
6.48-6.69 oz Lye
14 oz Water

Plain and simple, has coconut oil for lather, olive oil for conditioning and mildness and palm for hardness and conditioning. This recipe is easy to add oatmeal to or lavender buds when it traces.

Cheap Recipe

12 oz Canola oil (33%)
12 oz Coconut oil (33%)
12 oz Lard (33%)
Lye 5.24-5.07 for 5-8% superfatting
14 oz Water

This recipe is a very cheap one to make. I used it when I was first starting making soap because if I messed up it didn't cost me much. Also when I tried my first Crock Pot Hot process I used this recipe. If you change the Canola to Olive oil it makes a wonderfully mild bar of soap.

Blue Aspen Soap Recipes
These recipes are similar in that they all include, olive, coconut, palm kernel and canola oils.

Blue Aspen's Shortening Base (86 ounces)

(January 2003)

17 oz Canola oil (20%)
12 oz olive oil (14%)
3 oz castor oil (4%)
16 oz coconut oil (19%)
10 oz palm kernel oil (12%)
26 oz soy-vegetable shortening (31%)
20-24 oz water
11.38-11.75 oz lye for 5-8% superfatting

This has become standard recipe this past year or so and fits just perfect in my larger mold. It is a nice bubbly, white bar of soap, hard and easy to swirl. It works out to be 5.25 lbs of oils and I use a 4 ounce bottle of fragrance oil to scent a batch. I got tired of having half-empty bottles of fragrances around so decided to work out a recipe that would use up an even amount and 4 ounces works well.

Blue Aspen's High Olive Shortening Base (86 ounces)

(January 2003)

20 oz Coconut oil (23%)
20 oz Soy-vegetable shortening (23%)
10 oz Palm kernel oil (12%)
16 oz Canola oil (19%)
18 oz Olive oil (21%)
2 oz Castor oil (2%)
11.81-12.2 oz lye for 5-8% superfatting
20-24 oz water

I wanted to lower the amount of castor oil in the Blue Aspen's Shortening Base because I felt it made the soap a little sticky when unmolding and slower to cure. I also raised the olive oil content to make it a richer bar and raised the sudsing oils (coconut and palm kernel) for hardness and more lather.

Blue Aspen's Vegetable (with castor and hemp)

Emerald Sea using this recipe.

8 oz Coconut (19.05%)
8 oz Palm Kernel (19.05%)
8 oz Palm (19.05%)
2 oz Castor (4.76%)
8 oz Canola (19.5%)
4 .5 oz Olive (10.71%)
3.5 oz Hemp seed (8.33%)
5.8-5.99 oz Lye
16 oz water

I love the way this bar feels, silky smooth. My lathering oils are Palm Kernel, Coconut and Castor, I like to use this combination of lathering oils in a lot of my recipes. I like this recipe scented with Tradewinds Fragrance Company's Hawaiian Sandalwood.

Blue Aspen's Hard Bar

Cowboy bar with cocoa powder for the swirl.

6 oz Canola oil (14.29%)
2 oz Castor oil (4.76%)
3 oz Cocoa Butter (7.14%)
6 oz Coconut (14.28%)
10 oz Olive oil (23.81%)
6 oz Palm Kernel (14.28%)
8 oz Crisco (Soybean SAP)(19.05%)
1oz Stearic Acid (2.38%)
5.63-5.81 oz Lye
12 oz Water

Most of the pictures on this site use this recipe. I add 1 Tablespoon of Borax to dissolve in the lye water for as a water conditioner.
Note: (January 2003) I have found this recipe to be a little brittle due to the stearic acid. I would suggest dropping the stearic acid and recalculating the lye amount.

Castile Soaps
High in Olive oil Back to Top

Blue Aspen's Exotic Face Bar (48 oz oils)

(January 2003)

38oz Olive oil (78%)
5 oz Coconut oil (10%)
1 oz Mango Butter (2%)
2 oz Castor oil (4%)
1 oz Aloe Butter (2%)
1 oz Grapeseed oil (2%)
1 oz Jojoba (2%)
6.29-6.49 oz lye for 5-8% superfatting
14 oz water, milk or herbal tea

I really like this recipe, I had a bunch of exotic oils I wanted to add to make a rich facial soap. If you don't have these specific exotic oils and butters substitute what you do have, just don't forget to re-run the recipe for new lye amounts if you do change the oils. To make this really rich I use an herbal tea for some of the water and a little milk for the other part.

Blue Aspen's Castile Bar (62 oz oils)

13.5 oz Coconut oil (22%)
13.5 oz Palm oil (22%)
35 oz Olive oil (56%)
8.41-8.68 oz Lye
18 oz Water

I wanted to do a mostly olive oil soap (Castile) to try one out. I scented it with 3:2:1 Peppermint, Tea Tree, Eucalyptus and used an herbal tea of Comfrey, Chamomile & Nettle for the water. It is not as rich as the Exotic Face Bar, it is high in olive oil and definitely a nice bar of soap.

Shared Recipes

I have not tested any of these recipes, just posted them as I received them.
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Citrus

Sent in by Maria Wiltscheck fudgenuts_2001@hotmail.com

16oz each of Crisco, coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil
4oz walnut oil
water - 25.4oz
lye - 10.2oz

additives
1 cup mixed orange, lemon, and lime peels, grated
juice of 1 lime and 1 lemon
1 tsp. lemon EO
2 tsp. orange EO
1 tsp. lime EO

makes a very sudsy bar that cleans well and leaves skin soft